INTERVIEW Tasmin Little Records the Elgar Violin Concerto
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Tasmin Little records the Elgar Violin Concerto - an interview with Nic... http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/Nov10/Elgar_Li... RECORDING OF THE MONTH SPECIAL OFFER RECORDING OF THE MONTH Exceptional £12 Post free worldwide ELGAR The Kingdom Elder 2CDS ONLY £12 post free Worldwide Search What's New Classical CD Reviews Live Reviews Jazz CD Reviews Composers Resources Contact Us Classical CD and DVD reviews. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free. Classical Editor: Rob Barnett Founder Len Mullenger EXPLORE Advertising Rates INTERVIEW Printable version Visitor stats Musicweb - CLICK MusicWeb International has over 30,000 Classical CD reviews on offer Tasmin Little records the Elgar Violin Concerto - an interview with Nick Barnard With the major release of a long-awaited recording from Gerard Hoffnung Concerts & one of Britain’s best-loved and The Bricklayer Story Shostakovich Symph. 10 finest violinists imminent, RLPO Petrenko MusicWeb can now offer £4.99 post free Tasmin Little very kindly found you discs from the an hour in her busy schedule to following catalogues: talk about this important new Prices include postage disc … and other things [Acte Préalable £13.50 ] [Arcodiva £12.00] [Avie from £6.25] Nick Barnard [NB]: In [British Music Society researching this interview it £12.00] [CDACCORD from £13.50 ] amazed me to realise that it is [ClassicO £12.50] now some twenty-one years [Hallé from £11] [Hortus £14.99 ] since your breakthrough [Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ] Berlin Philharmoniker Rattle recording. [Nimbus Special prices] CD £8.99 Special Edition [Northern Flowers £13.50] £17.99 [REDCLIFFE £11 ] [Sheva £11] Tasmin Little [TL]: Yes, [Tactus £11.50 ] absolutely which was the Bruch and the Dvorák for EMI. I recorded it in 1989 and it [Talent from £12.00 ] was released in 1990, the same year I made my debut at the Proms. So 1990 is [Toccata Classics £12.50 ] probably the year that I consider that my career began. The Prom was the Janácek Musicweb concerto – it had only recently been discovered and was a Proms premiere. Because Special Offers it was a curiosity and my debut I got an enormous amount of publicity which was wonderful. That coupled with the release of the Bruch and Dvorák disc which got Monthly Best Buys tremendous reviews … it really set me on the right path as it were. After which the Bartok Violin Concertos recordings came in fairly thick and fast including the Delius Violin Concerto and Arabella Steinbacher Double Concerto. £11.75/£10.00 NB: But before this new disc of the Elgar concerto there has been a gap of about seven years since your last concerto disc – the Moszkowski? TL: That’s right, with the Karlowicz. Since then I began my naked violin project and also released the follow-up CD Partners in time. I had been wanting to record the Elgar for many many years and had had in fact many offers to do it. Quite a few early on when I was making my way. I really felt it wasn’t the right timing; the Elgar for me was a piece I needed to live with and grow into. Not that my performances Elgar Violin Concerto Little weren’t valid then, I’m sure they were very fine but I think they would have been £10.75/£9.15 ‘young Tasmin’ kind of performances. Now I’ve had so much experience of playing that piece – 20 years, more actually, and worked with so many tremendous conductors and also lived since then! I do feel it is a piece that requires you to have the sense of occasion, of wonder and awe for this monumental work as well as quite an experienced head on your shoulders. Not just with regard to playing the piece but also to life. He was not a young man when he wrote the violin concerto – it’s a piece of someone who had also lived so I feel you need to be able to associate with some of that. New Releases Vespers of 1610 - 2CDs NB: Was it a work you studied at the Menuhin School or the Guildhall School of £18.75 - post free World-wide Music? 1 of 6 31/10/2010 09:51 Tasmin Little records the Elgar Violin Concerto - an interview with Nic... http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/Nov10/Elgar_Li... New Releases TL: No it was after I came back from private studies in Canada, the RPO asked me to play it with Yan Pascal Tortelier. They gave me quite a lot of notice which was jolly good because I certainly needed it – I think I had about six months which at that point in time I hardly had anything else to do and it was one of the first things that I did starting out as a fully-fledged professional. NB: I was surprised to realise that it was the first time Chandos have recorded it as well. Kaufmann keeps getting better and better says Ralph Moore TL: It is quite a surprising thing isn’t it. Perhaps they felt much as I did that the RECORDING OF THE MONTH perfect set of circumstances had to come together in order to make the recording which was certainly how I felt. I’m incredibly glad that I listened to my instinct to wait to make the recording that I believe I have made and the one that I really am sure I will listen to in the years to come and be incredibly proud of. NB: The Elgar seems to have had a recent burst of recording popularity. What is it in Elgar that is so currently appealing to a crop of young non-British violinists? ELÎNA GARANČA Habanera TL: When I was growing up the Elgar was not particularly well known. Then there £8.72/£10.25 was the ‘batch’ of Zuckerman, Perlman and the like. That was the era that set the Ads by Google RECORDING OF THE MONTH seal on the popularity of the concerto because it had been relatively neglected up Classical Music until that point. Perhaps the current group of recordings comes from the generation Violin of violinists who have grown up after that group of recordings and now feel ready to Brahms Sheet Music record the work. Music Recording NB: One of your other great loves is Delius; why is it do you think that his music resolutely refuses to enter the mainstream repertoire or indeed be promoted by many players? BRITTEN, BRIDGE, BAX TL: I’m sure there are two aspects which are perhaps joined. The one is that there is not an enormous call for it therefore orchestras and soloists are reluctant to spend BARGAIN OF THE MONTH time learning it but then it’s a case of the chicken and the egg where if the works are not programmed how will audiences get to the stage where they know they like it. Another reason is because as far as a soloist is concerned you have to be a particular kind of temperament - to not mind not having the ‘whizz-bang’ ending. Because, almost without exception, the major works of Delius end quietly and that’s not the MusicWeb sells the Polish circumstance that’s going to elicit rapturous applause. If you are looking to create a catalogue CDAccord sensation Delius’ music is not going to provide that. Its much easier to turn to £10.50 post free W-W 4CDs £11.91/£14 concertos that are obviously difficult where people will feel that you worked very hard, you did an amazing job and they’ll reward you with lots of applause. The Delius [concerto] is incredibly hard and yet it doesn’t sound hard. For some people that’s not going to be any good. A lot of soloists do like to feel that the audience is MusicWeb sells the aware of the difficulty and therefore be impressed by that. We have 2012 coming up Arcodiva catalogue £12.00 post free W-W [the 150 th anniversary of his birth] and I’m really hoping there will be an opportunity for people to experience a wider range of Delius’ music. William Schuman Symphonies NB: I read on your website that you feel performing live has the highest priority with £11.75 recording slightly lower down the list. But if it weren’t for your recordings of the post-free world- wide Delius and Rubbra concertos to name but two we as willing concert goers would not have had the chance to hear the music let alone hear you playing them. TL: Recordings are extremely important to me. I plan and hope to continue making recordings. But at the end of the day I really think there needs to be a reason to Google Ads - for information record something and it goes back to what I was saying earlier abut the right about privacy matters, click here . Gergiev circumstances; the right team, the right record company, the right repertoire all have to come together. I don’t believe in making a recording because somebody says “I’ve got a free date here, we could put that together pretty quickly”. That is so far from my ethos and so that was probably why I had a little bit of a gap as far as concerto recordings were concerned. There are too many recordings out there now; if I’m going to make my version its got to be the best version that I can make.